Tech stocks in Asia and Europe fell on October 13 after weak US semiconductor shares dragged on markets.

Investors weighed stronger competition from China and concerns over funding constraints slowing AI infrastructure spending.

In Europe, Dutch chip equipment maker ASML fell 3.3%.

Franco-Italian chipmaker STMicroelectronics and Germany’s Infineon dropped 5%.

Dutch firms BE Semiconductor and ASM International were each down about 4% at the open.

In South Korea, memory chipmaker SK hynix, a supplier of high-bandwidth memory used in AI, plunged more than 10%.

Samsung Electronics fell 7.4%. Both stocks hit their lowest levels since August.

In Japan, SoftBank Group led the decline, falling 8.5%. Chip equipment supplier Tokyo Electron dropped 7.2%, while chip testing equipment maker Advantest fell 2.9%.

Lasertec, Disco, and Renesas Electronics also declined.

The move followed Wall Street losses on October 12, where the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.44% and Micron Technology dropped 3.9%.

Investors were assessing progress at China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), a Chinese memory chipmaker, on a new chip structure designed to increase memory density.

Analysts said the sell-off appeared to reflect fragile sentiment around AI-related stocks more than an immediate shift in competition, especially in high-bandwidth memory, where South Korean chipmakers still dominate.

🔗 Source: CNBC

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